Needless to say, it’s been a hard few years. Losing 4 babies is not something anyone should go through. Really, no one should ever even lose one. After losing our fourth baby in July, we were raw. Raw and broken. After every miscarriage we’ve had, we have had the need to take a break from actively trying to conceive. We needed time to heal, process, grieve. The same was true for baby #4. August came and went in a sort of haze.

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So when September arrived, it hit us in the face with real life and a bunch of surprises. On September 3, David was laid off. Did NOT see that one coming. The investors decided to pull the plug on his project and let go of 40 people. (Praise the Lord, he was able to find another job in less than 2 months.)

Two days later, early morning of September 5, I decided to take yet another pregnancy test… because, you know, it’s what I do. I’m a pro at peeing on a stick. I could Olympic medal in stick peeing. Ick… that would be a gross competition to watch. But also because it had been roughly 5 weeks since our miscarriage and I hadn’t gotten my period yet. Not that that was unusual for my messed up body. Also because, we were set to leave on vacation 4 days later and I wanted to know for sure if I could safely drink on said vacation.

The post Getting Personal {Part 6} – The Big News… AT LAST!!! appeared first on Love, Pomegranate House.

Just a warning: this post is going to be fast and hard. There is a lot to share and I just don’t have it in me to linger on the details. So here we go.

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The post Getting Personal {Part 5} – Ripping Off the Bandaid… appeared first on Love, Pomegranate House.

So when our story left off, I had been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease where my immune system attacks my thyroid when I eat gluten. So I went gluten free. I was hoping and praying to get pregnant. I was determined to find a new doctor, which was especially scary after miscarriage #2. And, in general, I was feeling loads better.

That brings us to October 2014. I had found a new OBGYN who specialized in infertility. I was going through a process of having many tests to get a better handle on the cause of our struggles to get pregnant. During one of my many, MANY tests I was diagnosed with PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome. Basically, because of my wack-a-doo hormones my ovaries become covered in cysts, thus not allowing me to ovulate regularly. THUS not being able to get pregnant. This combined with my chronically low progesterone were the root of our problem. But then we discovered another problem. During that ultrasound where I was diagnosed with PCOS the tech noticed a large mass on my right ovary. After talking to my doctor, we found that many times these masses resolve themselves so we decided to keep an eye on it for 6 weeks and then check it out again.

Well, the 6 weeks came and went and it was time to check in on my little cyst. Well, I guess it wasn’t so little. It was the size of a golfball. This second ultrasound found that the cyst wasn’t in fact a cyst. It was a tumor. A dermoid teratoma to be exact. A teratoma that had grown to the size of a lime. And the only way to get rid of it was surgery.

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In my opinion, furnishing a house can be stressful. I’m a worry wart so I’m always over-thinking my furniture purchases. I don’t want to get a piece that is going to be seen as “trendy” and I’ll hate in a year or two. And I worry that it would be a “one hit wonder”. You know… the kind that you only find one use for and you can only use it in that one way. What if I change my mind? What if I want to move it?

USE #1- Well, as a Bookcase…

So when I actually do get new furniture, I always look for it to be multi-purpose and versatile. I want that baby to be able to hold just about anything and go anywhere! And I want fit with our style. Because if it fits our style, it will go with all the other pieces we love as well. And if it is versatile and fits our style, that piece is in it for the long haul.

Remember my Sauder tall bookcase I showed you a few months ago? It is a perfect example of a multi-purpose piece. We put it in our master bedroom and filled it with books. But then we started our giant replace-ALL-the-floors project and all the books got boxed for the time being. So then it took on a new use…

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I’M SOOOO SORRY I KEPT YOU WAITING TO READ THE MAJESTIC WORDS THAT CONSTANTLY FLOW FROM MY BRILLIANT MIND. I’LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN! (I’ll totally do it again… Sorry.)

Ok. Now that that is done, let’s get on to the meat and potatoes of this post… the hardwood floors!! Are you guys sick of them yet? I swear I’m almost done sharing about them. They’ve been installed for about 3 months now. HA! I think it’s time I wrap these suckers up.

Installing hardwoods is a really intimidating prospect if you have never done it before. But it really isn’t hard at all! Time consuming? Yes. Hard? No. Like I told you in a previous post, we decided to do a floating installation. And in my last post, I showed you how we prepped for the floors and left you with a picture of our very own in-home highway. So now we are up to the biggie… installation.

Installation began pretty early one morning. All in all, we laid roughly 800 square feet of hardwood in 6 spaces of our home (master bedroom, hallway, kitchen, living room, dining room, laundry closet). And we did it all in about 8 days. And that was going at a somewhat leisurely pace. I’m absolutely sure the professionals could have it done in 2-3 days… tops. But being novice floor layers, it took us a bit longer.

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So this week all my moving, doing, and diy-ing have caught up with me. So now I’m sitting a little more amidst the doing. Hence getting one post up today. I had a goal of getting 2 posts done this week but then it was Thursday so it didn’t happen. Oops. But at least I’m getting one post up, right!? Today I’m continuing with sharing about our brand new hardwood floors! So far I’ve shared hardwood floors 101 and all about the demo. Today I’m going to show you all the prep work that was required before we could lay our new floors.

The post Project New Hardwood Floors – Prep appeared first on Love, Pomegranate House.

Anywho, I’m teaming up with 75 of my bloggy besties to share TONS of fall decorating, crafts, and food ideas. That is all down below. But first, check out my awesome new fall felt wreath! I was really wanting to go with something untraditional and full of fun pops of color so this is what I came up with! I know, I know… my name is Talitha and I’m a wreath-aholic. I believe this is my 10th wreath I’ve shared on LPH. Its a sickness really. I think I need to start selling them to neighbors. Or better yet! Just start attaching them to peoples’ doors! If you live in the southern Denver, Colorado area and randomly find a wreath attached to your door… it is just me making room for my next batch of wreaths.

The post Fall Felt Wreath + 75 Fall Harvest Ideas Round Up! appeared first on Love, Pomegranate House.

About 10 freakin’ years ago I started telling you guys about how we were demoing for our new hardwood floors. Ok. Maybe not 10 years. But sometimes, when you are sick, 3 weeks feels like 10 years. Plus, I had every intention to post again about 3 days later, but then life happened. Anywho. I’ve spent about 6 months researching all things hardwood floors so we could make the best decision. And I’ve learned a lot. Like, A LOT. So I figured I would teach a class today on all that I learned. Call it Hardwood Floors 101. And I’m Professor Talitha.

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The floors are almost done now but I’ve been slow at posting. I guess working from 8am-8pm every day will do that to you. My bad. But I also don’t feel TOO bad because everything has happened within the past 3 weeks. It has been utter insanity.  We decided to do the floor demo, install, and finishing touches all ourselves. You know, to save money and to be able to say that we did. While I’ve been working my tail off I have been thinking of you guys though! I have been chronicling our whole process so I can it share with all of you. And to encourage those of you who think laying hardwoods is too difficult. I promise it isn’t! It isn’t that hard at all… just a little time consuming. Especially if you are laying almost 800 square feet.

So let’s get this party started! The first step to laying new hardwoods is ordering hardwoods. Obviously. There are tons of options out there but we went with BuildDirect.com. And can I say… they are freaking awesome. They don’t know me and I’m not getting paid to say this, but their prices and quality are second to none. And if you order a FREE sample, it will be on your doorstep in less than 24 hours. I’m hoping to do a post all about picking out hardwoods so I’ll give you more info on that at a later date.

Back to the topic of this post. DEMO. We had our floors ordered so we needed to demo our old floors so we could install the gorgeous new ones. Step one in the demo process is to decide if you want to remove baseboards or not. Your options are basically #1: remove baseboards and re-install them on top of the new floors or #2: leave your current baseboards attached to the wall and lay the floors right up to your baseboards. With option 2 you just use quarter-round trim to cover the necessary expansion gap. We chose option #1. Partly because we had to remove some of the baseboards anyways to rip up old floors and subflooring (more on that in a sec) and partly because we wanted to replace all the baseboards due to the previous owners’ what-I-can-only-assume-was-a-live-in pack of wolves.

Removal of said baseboards was pretty easy peasy. Cut the caulk with a utility knife. Wedge a flat tip screwdriver between the wall and the baseboards. Hammer the screwdriver with a few taps to pull the baseboards away from the wall. Move screwdriver down the baseboard until the entire piece comes off in one piece! TA-DA!

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And because I am such an incredibly kind and benevolent ruler of this slice of the internet, I wanted to share my amazing find with all of you. Seriously guys, Sauder is awesome. Sauder is this great company that manufactures high quality furniture at affordable prices. I got this great tall bookcase and gold storage ottoman for less than $250! And yes, in case you were wondering, those ah-mazing label plates came with the bookcase.

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